NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

A barrier that those looking to give back to the community most often face is not knowing how and where to start. Even for corporations, while corporate social responsibility (CSR) is gaining ground, it is still an uphill task to bring together a largely distributed workforce and quantify impact of contributions in terms of CSR.

Co-founded by Chad Smalley and Kevin Chua in December 2015,Involver – Social Volunteering is a platform that connects volunteers to social causes and help corporations and non-profits run data-oriented structured CSR programs economically. Involver’s research estimates that its services can save charities and non-profits up to 5% of their annual sponsored funds, which they can then in turn channelize to theircommunity activities. “CSR and university partners could save an upwards of 15-20% of cost savings managing their CSR and student engagement programs,” says Smalley.

The startup brings non-profits on board to adopt its services and thereby gets volunteers and corporate partners to use the app.Customers are charged a monthly subscription fee for the technology that helps streamline volunteer management. The upstart reports over 1,200 volunteer users for the app (all organic) and 31+ partners posting volunteering events weekly. Involver’s gamified mobile app also enables better volunteer engagement where users earn badges and progress in levels for doing good. The platform also helps corporations derive better value out of their CSR by generating useful reports for decision-making.